This is a unique revolution which some people maintain contradicts one
of the most orthodox premises of the revolutionary movement, expressed by Lenin:
"Without a revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary movement." It would be
suitable to say that revolutionary theory, as the expression of a social truth, surpasses
any declaration of it; that is to say, even if the theory is not known, the revolution can
succeed if historical reality is interpreted correctly and if the forces involved are
utilised correctly. Every revolution always incorporates elements of very different
tendencies which, nevertheless, coincide in action and in the revolution's most immediate
objectives.

It is clear that if the leaders have an adequate theoretical knowledge
prior to the action, they can avoid trial and error whenever the adopted theory
corresponds to the reality.

The principal actors of this revolution had no coherent theoretical
criteria; but it cannot be said that they were ignorant of the various concepts of
history, society, economics, and revolution which are being discussed in the world today.

Profound knowledge of reality, a close relationship with the people, the
firmness of the liberator's objective, and the practical revolutionary experience gave to
those leaders the chance to form a more complete theoretical concept.

The foregoing should be considered an introduction to the explanation of
this curious phenomenon that has intrigued the entire world: the Cuban Revolution. It is a
deed worthy of study in contemporary world history: the how and the why of a group of men
who, shattered by an army enormously superior in technique and equipment, managed first to
survive, soon became strong, later became stronger than the enemy in the battle zones,
still later moved into new zones of combat, and finally defeated that enemy on the
battlefield even though their troops were still very inferior in number.

Naturally we, who often do not show the requisite concern for theory,
will not run the risk of expounding the truth of the Cuban Revolution as though we were
its masters. We will simply try to give the bases from which one can interpret this truth.
In fact, the Cuban Revolution must be separated into two absolutely distinct stages: that
of the armed action up to January 1, 1959, and the political, economic and social
transformations since then.

Even these two stages deserve further subdivisions; however, we will not
take them from the viewpoint of historical exposition, but from the viewpoint of the
evolution of the revolutionary thought of its leaders through their contact with the
people. Incidentally, here one must introduce a general attitude toward one of the most
controversial terms of the modern world: Marxism. When asked whether or not we are
Marxists, our position is the same as that of a physicist or a biologist when asked if he
is a "Newtonian," or if he is a "Pasteurian".

There are truths so evident, so much a part of people's knowledge, that
it is now useless to discuss them. One ought to be "Marxist' with the same
naturalness with which one is "Newtonian" in physics, or "Pasteurian"
in biology, considering that if facts determine new concepts, these new concepts will
never divest themselves of that portion of truth possessed by the older concepts they have
outdated. Such is the case, for example, of Einsteinian relativity or of Planck's
"quantum" theory with respect to the discoveries of Newton; they take nothing at
all away from the greatness of the learned Englishman. Thanks to Newton, physics was able
to advance until it had achieved new concepts of space. The learned Englishman provided
the necessary stepping-stone for them.

The advances in social and political science, as in other fields, belong
to a long historical process whose links are connecting, adding up, moulding and
constantly perfecting themselves. In the origin of peoples, there exists a Chinese, Arab
or Hindu mathematics; today, mathematics has no frontiers. In the course of history there
was a Greek Pythagoras, an Italian Galileo, an English Newton, a German Gauss, a Russian
Lobachevsky, an Einstein, etc. Thus in the field of social and political sciences, from
Democritus to Marx, a long series of thinkers added their original investigations and
accumulated a body of experience and of doctrines.

The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in
the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts
the future, but in addition to predicting it (which would satisfy his scientific
obligation), he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted,
it must be transformed. Man ceases to be the slave and tool of his environment and
converts himself into the architect of his own destiny. At that moment Marx puts himself
in a position where he becomes the necessary target of all who have a special interest in
maintaining the old-similar to Democritus before him, whose work was burned by Plato and
his disciples, the ideologues of Athenian slave aristocracy. Beginning with the
revolutionary Marx, a political group with concrete ideas establishes itself. Basing
itself on the giants, Marx and Engels, and developing through successive steps with
personalities like Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and the new Soviet and Chinese rulers, it
establishes a body of doctrine and, let us say, examples to follow.

The Cuban Revolution takes up Marx at the point where he himself left
science to shoulder his revolutionary rifle. And it takes him up at that point, not in a
revisionist spirit, of struggling against that which follows Marx, of reviving
"pure" Marx, but simply because up to that point Marx, the scientist, placed
himself outside of the history he studied and predicted. From then on Marx, the
revolutionary, could fight within history.

We, practical revolutionaries, initiating our own struggle, simply
fulfil laws foreseen by Marx, the scientist. We are simply adjusting ourselves to the
predictions of the scientific Marx as we travel this road of rebellion, struggling against
the old structure of power, supporting ourselves in the people for the destruction of this
structure, and having the happiness of this people as the basis of our struggle. That is
to say, and it is well to emphasise this once again: The laws of Marxism are present in
the events of the Cuban Revolution, independently of what its leaders profess or fully
know of those laws from a theoretical point of view. . .

Each of those brief historical moments in the guerrilla warfare framed
distinct social concepts and distinct appreciations of the Cuban reality; they outlined
the thought of the military leaders of the revolution-those who in time would also take
their position as political leaders.

Before the landing of the Granma, a mentality predominated that, to some
degree, might be called "subjectivist": blind confidence in a rapid popular
explosion, enthusiasm and faith in the power to liquidate the Batista regime by a swift,
armed uprising combined with spontaneous revolutionary strikes, and the subsequent fall of
the dictator. . .

After the landing comes the defeat, the almost total destruction of the
forces, and their regrouping and integration as guerrillas. Characteristic of those few
survivors, imbued with the spirit of struggle, was the understanding that to count upon
spontaneous outbursts throughout the island was a falsehood, an illusion. They understood
also that the fight would have to be a long one and that it would need vast campesino
participation. At this point, the campesinos entered the guerrilla war for the first time.

Two events - hardly important in terms of the number of combatants, but
of great psychological value - were unleashed. First, antagonism that the city people, who
comprised the central guerrilla group, felt towards the campesinos was erased. The
campesinos, in turn, distrusted the group and, above all, feared barbarous reprisals of
the government. Two things demonstrated themselves at this stage, both very important for
the interrelated factors: To the campesinos, the bestialities of the army and all the
persecution would not be sufficient to put an end to the guerrilla war, even though the
army was certainly capable of liquidating the campesinos' homes, crops, and families. To
take refuge with those in hiding was a good solution. In turn, the guerrilla fighters
learned the necessity, each time more pointed, of winning the campesino masses. . . .

[Following the failure of Batista's major assault on the Rebel Army,]
the war shows a new characteristic: The correlation of forces turns toward the revolution.
Within a month and a half, two small columns, one of eighty and the other of a hundred
forty men, constantly surrounded and harassed by an army that mobilised thousands of
soldiers, crossed the plains of CamagŁey, arrived at Las Villas, and began the job of
cutting the island in two.

It may seem strange, incomprehensible, and even incredible that two
columns of such small size - without communications, without mobility, without the most
elementary arms of modern warfare - could fight against well-trained, and above all,
well-armed troops.

Basic [to the victory] is the characteristic of each group: the fewer
comforts the guerrilla fighter has, the more he is initiated into the rigors of nature,
the more he feels himself at home; his morale is higher, his sense of security greater. At
the same time, he has learned to risk his life in every circumstance that might arise, to
trust it to luck, like a tossed coin; and in general, as a final result of this kind of
combat, it matters little to the individual guerrilla whether or not he survives.

The enemy soldier in the Cuban example, which we are now considering, is
the junior partner of the dictator; he is the man who gets the last crumbs left to him in
a long line of profiteers that begins in Wall Street and ends with him. He is disposed to
defend his privileges, but he is disposed to defend them only to the degree that they are
important to him. His salary and pension are worth some suffering and some dangers, but
they are never worth his life; if the price of maintaining them will cost it, he is better
off giving them up, that is to say, withdrawing from the face of guerrilla danger. From
these two concepts and these two morals springs the difference which would cause the
crisis of December 31, 1958 [The day Batista was overthrown]...

Here ends the insurrection. But the men who arrive in Havana after two
years of arduous struggle in the mountains and plains of Oriente, in the plains of
CamagŁey, and in the mountains, plains, and cities of Las Villas, are not the same men,
ideologically, who landed on the beaches of Las Coloradas, or who took part in the first
phase of the struggle. Their distrust of the campesino has been converted into affection
and respect for his virtues; their total ignorance of life in the country has been
converted into a knowledge of the needs of our guajiros; their flirtations with statistics
and with theory have been fixed by the cement which is practice.

With the banner of Agrarian Reform, the execution of which begins in the
Sierra Maestra, these men confront imperialism. They know that the Agrarian Reform is the
basis upon which the new Cuba must build itself. They know also that the Agrarian Reform
will give land to all the dispossessed, but that it will dispossess its unjust possessors;
and they know that the greatest of the unjust possessors are also influential men in the
State Department or in the government of the United States of America. But they have
learned to conquer difficulties with bravery, with audacity and, above all, with the
support of the people; and they have now seen the future of liberation that awaits us on
the other side of our sufferings.